


Loss

by Maybeno



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 03:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6357112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybeno/pseuds/Maybeno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's almost funny, the things you lose.</p>
<p>Your first loss is your innocence, (but that’s okay, you didn’t even know you had that to lose).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, this is my first story, so I'm a bit nervous. It's a little different and I apologize for the run-on sentences. Hope you like it! 
> 
> I don't own Arrow.

It’s almost funny, the things you lose. 

Your first loss is your innocence, (but that’s okay, you didn’t even know you had that to lose). 

There are moments, just a few, (feel proud), when you rinse the blood from your hands and submerge your head to wash the grease and grime and you hold yourself still. 

There is a heartbeat in your ears but you and your body have come to an understanding. You know what to say for it to respond. You know how to move to get it to react. You think that if you hold still that the heartbeat may go still too. 

When your lungs clench, you raise your head because you’ve learned how to listen too. 

With the blood washing away in those streams, in the leaky faucets of the cities you were dragged to, in the storms that only sometimes were louder than your thoughts, you lost pieces of yourself, until the boy in the mirror could do nothing but scream. 

When you’re home, there is a new kind of loss. 

It’s in the stares that hold too long. In the words that people half speak. The way you simply no longer know how to say, “How was your day?” and actually care. Perhaps though, that wasn’t a loss as much as something you never really had, (be honest, it’s only us here).

Your sister is a brush of cold fire with demands of a brother who never had a right to live. You are not the boy who laughed when others were hurt and thought he deserved the sun to rise on demand. 

You are not the boy who thought he had a throne from which to rule.

You wait for the sun to fall and you ask the moon to provide the shadows you need. Your sister’s brother is dead and you can’t decide if it’s selfish of selfless to not tell her, (it’s selfish, you know it’s true). 

The need to hoard and keep things close was something gained..or perhaps a security with belongings was lost, (you don’t know, it’s okay to admit). 

You do this with people, relationships, along with objects. You can’t let your mother and sister go, just like you can’t stop yourself from filling your napkin with food you can’t eat, just so you know there’s a back up plan for when you starve again, (you’re still starving...you will always be starving).

It’s amazing how five years in hell will replace two decades of luxury but your mattress is too soft and the floor doesn’t have enough stones digging into your spine. You can’t stop yourself from contorting your body into positions that make you ache. 

It’s okay though, you and your body have come to an understanding. 

You don’t realize that you left monsters in your wake. You were too busy becoming one yourself to see the broken bodies morphing into things that only you could see, (you never turned around, you still won’t). 

But Laurel Lance is a monster standing in front of you and you can’t look away. 

She is ice with a hate that burns so hot you can’t even feel it. You allow yourself only a few moments, (be proud), where you look at her and think, weakness. You know where you would push, what you would whisper, what it would take. She is brittle bones with an already broken soul. 

She makes rage fill you until the point you burn. 

Pretty little Laurel whose life has hurt her...doesn’t she know how you’ve bled? 

But you love her, you always have, (destroy her, you know you want to). 

Diggle is a surprise and his presence allows for the first breath of fresh air you’ve taken. There is an understanding in his face, in the words he doesn’t say. He is a threat but this new existence you have found is about balance and it’s difficult to accept but sometimes, that balance favors you, (it doesn’t, think of what you’re doing). He becomes something of a friend and maybe you can do this after all. 

Felicity doesn’t burn her way into your life like Laurel, (delicate, hateful, breakable Laurel), or push through like Diggle, (arms too strong, but the legs...a broken kneecap; first the right and then the left). She is simply there with a pen in her mouth, (red), and a face that says, “Liar.” 

After you leave you realize that there is a smile curing across your lips, (careful there, you know what this means). But before you can stop it, (you wouldn’t have tried), she is a permanent fixture in the place you call home. 

You don’t know how to tell these people that have become your family that you died years ago with a boat that tore in two, with a father who wasn’t strong enough to wait for death, with an arrow in your chest, and a bow in your hand. 

“I’m dead,” You tell the mirror instead and it agrees, (such a pretty little corpse). 

And then, your perfect world, the one you did everything to return to, is built on lies, (not yours, but remembers those are there too), and it crumbles and shakes beneath you. Your mother, (a bad hip, emotionally weak), is behind bars and likely always will be. Your sister, (spoiled, entitled, physically incapable, emotionally stunted), is angry...angrier than she ever was at you for letting her brother die. 

She still doesn’t know, (remember, you’re being selfish). 

And then the world moves on like it always does and there’s Sara. Remember Sara? 

You killed her...only you didn’t. 

You aren’t angry, not really, that she made you think you failed her. That this whole time she has been alive and simply staying away because she doesn’t want the people she loves to know what she has become. It’s selfless and you aren’t angry, not really, (the pure hate makes you choke). 

You owe Sara. Everything is your fault after all and you didn’t get on the boat just because Laurel, (beautiful, broken, hateful Laurel), wanted too much too soon, (she did). Being with Sara is easy, (it’s not, it’s not, it’s not). 

But there’s Felicity, who you can’t help but touch even though you know you’re leaving decay on her bright clothes and brighter smile. You’re hurting her, you know, but it’s what you’ve always been good at and the alternative is making her happy, (how overwhelming). 

It’s a mistake to say you love her to fool Slade, (that other monster you created, don’t forget the bodies you’ve left behind). She knows you, remember? There was too much truth in your words. Your face twisted into an expression you didn’t know. You didn’t know what it said, (that’s not true though, is it?). 

Later when you try to take it back, her face says, “Liar.” 

But you can’t be with her because she makes the boy in the mirror hold his breath, the arrow in your chest move back ever so slightly, the liars with the honeyed tongues fall just a few more feet, and your spine straighten without the stones to make it curve. 

But this isn’t about her, this is about you. 

Though now it’s about Sara who fell from the roof with arrows in her chest, (ironic really). You aren’t reacting because you need to be strong for them...all of them. You need to be the one to lead them in their loss. 

Loss isn’t new for you, you know what to do. After all, what's one more thing? (Careful, you're getting close). 

They stare, and you know they think that it’s wrong that you aren’t more upset, that you are capable of staying together as much as you are. Laurel is a cold fury like she always is and you only have moments, (be proud), where you think how easy it would be to make her go perfectly silent. 

Silent like Sara..and that’s enough, you would never do it. 

They don’t know that you go home and stare at the boy in the mirror and say, “Cry.” (You don’t know how, it was a foolish demand).

The world seems to slow when Malcolm Merlin shows you what he has done to your sister. You didn’t create this monster but there is something that echoes within you when you see his satisfied smile behind calculated concern. 

He isn’t your monster but maybe if he was, one of the arrows on your back could be put through his chest; ripped open like Sara’s, (but don’t forget the monsters behind you, you’re still not looking). 

You tell them that you killed her, you murdered Sara. Sara who had meant so much to them (she didn’t though...you know it’s true). It doesn’t matter that it’s a lie, it satisfies them all the same. Maybe they can sense that you would have done it when there had been so much rage...but no, that isn’t true (it is...it is). 

And then you’re there and there is a man standing in front of you. 

He is the man who is going to kill you. 

It’s not a relief (yes, it is). There are so many things you want to live for, (foolish broken things); you’re not ready to die (here’s a secret: you died a long time ago). 

And then you’re falling and it’s okay that the last thing you lose, perhaps just like anyone else, is simply you, (pretty little corpse, will you scream for me?)

It’s almost funny, the things you lose.

(Hush now, we've reached the end).

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to know what you thought! All comments are appreciated!


End file.
